Typically, conventional accelerometers have a mass attached to a resilient, movable member and a stationary member. The stationary member together with the movable member form two plates of a capacitor. As the spacial position of the movable member is changed at non-constant rates, the mass moves toward or away from a stationary member. The change in the separation of the stationary and movable members results in a change in capacitance which can be correlated to a change in acceleration.
Although these prior accleremeters work, they have some limitations. For example, typically these prior accelerometers have been complex MEMS devices with large numbers of interdigitated “comb” fingers that are needed to create a capacitor difference large enough to be interpreted. As a result, these prior devices are large and expensive to manufacture.